sonja gomez on the intimate relationships between people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds that occurred in hawaii and japan during and immediately after world war ii. exploring the american story. watch "american history tv" saturdays on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide, or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. ♪ >> democracy, it isn't just an idea, it is a process. a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding basic principles. it is where debates unfold, decisions are made and the nations course is charted. democracy in real-time. this is your government at work. this is c-span, giving you your democracy unfiltered.

>> president trump welcomed a group of racecar drivers and team owners to the white house ahead of his effective trip to the 2025 daytona 500. the president explained his decision to pause the implementation of import tariffs. this is about 20 minutes. this is about 20 minutes. >> hello everybody. >> great to see you. >> appreciate it. [background chatter] >> yes, sir.

absolutely. >> hello, everybody. is this the car? >> yes, this is the car. >> mr. president, thank you for having us. >> thank you. somebody had to do it. thank you very much, everybody. we have a very special day for a lot of reasons. this is a day because roger penske is a great friend of mine.

he received a few years ago the presidential medal of freedom, the highest honor in the country , the civilian version of the congressional medal of honor. i watched him win his 18th indianapolis 500. and now i just said, did you win 19? he said actually we won 20. he has two more since then. just well deserving. if you look germany, japan, the countries, they do it sometimes but not much but he's done it 20 times. he must know something about cars and trucks. knows a lot about trucks. he has been a very special guy and he's brought some of our outstanding racing champions with tremendous courage. hello fellows. that's a good-looking couple of

teams. they have a lot of courage. we will see you in a second. we are joined by the 2023 2020 four nascar champion ryan blaney and joey lugano. really fantastic. that's great. [applause] how fast do you get that car going? >> 190. >> about 190? you can have it. that's fantastic. on the straightaway you go how much? >> around 190 to 200. >> it takes a special genetic. it its genes, really. most people couldn't do that. very few people could do it. the 2023 and 2024 indianapolis 500 winner joseph new garden.

and the 2020 five champions of the 24 hours of daytona. [applause] >> so this is just a celebration of racing and a celebration of roger and his great success in his life and he's -- these are incredible champions who do what very few people do. mentally, psychologically it's a big factor like it is in all sports really. they don't realize what great athletes they are. i had a friend who was a very successful guy. he wanted to be a race car driver. he's like joey lugano. he said i just could not compete with the good drivers. could not do it.

got lucky, he went into business and made a lot of money. but he said i could not press the accelerator down all the way and the best drivers could so there was a difference. i never forgot that story. but these are great champions and it's a great sport and what you've done in indianapolis also has been incredible. i mean it's really incredible. people tell me it's been amazing. i'll have to get there. i'm going to get there maybe this year with you. but we did daytona. we went around the track in the beast, what's called the beast, with the thick windows and the whole thing, and you're not supposed to hear anything, but i heard the fans, they were going crazy outside, so it was, it was a great honor. so i just wanted to welcome them to the white house, a special place, very, very special place,

and we love champions, and these are the greatest champions in the world. these are the greatest champions in racing, and it's an honor to have you all and thank you very much, all of you. thank you very much. i wouldn't ride in that thing if you paid me. how fast will that go? >> 240 plus. >> 240? that's unbelievable. two time winner of the indianapolis 500 consecutively, right? >> yes sir. >> so what the hell are you doing? what do you eat? >> drink a lot of milk hopefully. >> and that one is pure speed and endurance, right? is that car a very different car than, let's say this one, very different? >> very different. to last so many hours, and we all shared the car, so 3 drivers. >> totally different engine, everything? and you go, is it 24 hours. that's a long time and that car just, there's no let up. there's no, it's just constant, right? congratulations. that's endurance.

endurance is a big factor in life and success, i can tell you so. you guys have it. well, thank you very much. would you like to ask roger or any of these champions any questions while we're here? >> [inaudible] just a few hours later there was a pause put in on the tariffs. can you walk us through your thinking about why you decided to put a 90 day pause? >> well, i thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. they were getting yippie, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid, unlike these champions, because we have a big job to do. no other president would have done what i did. no other president. i know the presidents. they wouldn't have done it. and it had to be done. what was happening to us on trade not only with, you know, if you look at it, not only with china, but china was by far the biggest abuser in history and others also, but somebody had to do it.

they had to stop because it was not sustainable. last year china made $1 trillion off trade with the united states. that's not right. and now i've reversed it. it's for a short period of time, but we made $2 billion. we're making now $2 billion a day. and somebody had to do it. roger actually said it. charles schwab was here a little while ago, one of the great financial people, and he said, he's been waiting for 40 years for somebody to do what i did over the last month, and if you didn't do it, you wouldn't have a country. it wouldn't be sustainable, so i'm honored to have done it and you know, look, nothing's over yet, but we have a tremendous amount of spirit from other countries, including china. china wants to make a deal. they just don't know how quite to go about it, you know. it's one of those things they don't know quite they're proud people. and president xi is a proud man. i know him very well and they

don't know quite how to go about it, but they'll figure it out in the process of figuring it out, but they want to make a deal and we have other, we, we have many other countries, as you know, many more than 75, and they all want to come, and they want to come here or they'll go to commerce or they'll go to treasury. we have our great senators here and congressmen. they'll call john somebody. they'll go through somebody, but they're all calling, how do we do this? they all want to make a deal. somebody had to do what we did, and i did a 90 day pause for the people that didn't retaliate because i told them if you retaliate, we're going to double it. and that's what i did with china because they did retaliate. so we'll see how it all works out. i think it's going to work out amazing. i think that our country is going to be. at the end of a year or shorter, but i think we're going to have something that nobody would have dreamt possible. a man like roger pensky. i don't want to get him in trouble with china, so i won't, but he would know that you have to someday you have to cut the

bow and you have to do what you have to do, right? roger? and that's what i did, and i'm very happy who have done it. >> the prime minister of greece just told breitbart's matt boyle that he thinks absolutely the european union and the united states could work out a trade deal that's win-win and mutually beneficial to both sides. what do you think about the prime minister's comments, and do you think a deal could be struck with the european union? >> first of all, i know him. he's a good man and i appreciate his comments. yeah, a deal could be made with every one of them. a deal, a deal is going to be made with china. a deal's going to be made with every one of them, and there'll be fair deals. i just want fair. they will be fair deals for everybody. but they weren't fair to the united states. they were sucking us dry and you can't do that. you know, we have $36 trillion of debt for a reason. we don't have it there for fun. they have it for a reason, and people took advantage of our country and they ripped us off for very for decades.

i've been thinking about this for decades. i've, if you ever saw me on television, i was young like these guys, and it was a good old days, i'll tell you, roger, but i was like these guys, young. and i was talking about it. nothing, nothing changed and nothing was done about it. then i did it in my first term. i did it. and did it well. we took in hundreds of billions of dollars from china and others, and i started the process, but then we had a fix up from the covid mess caused by china. we had a fix up from that and we did a good job of doing it. and when we handed back the reins after a rigged election and when we handed back the raids, the stock market was higher than it was before covid coming in. so you know we did a great job, but we didn't have time to do the big thing which we're doing now. and it's, you know, it's like a patient is sick. you have to do surgery. the patient is very, very sick,

and joe biden hand handed us over a country that was in very serious trouble economically and in every other way. they let china run away with things. they let other countries run away with things. and maybe worst of all in a certain way is what they did at the border, we had people pouring into our country by the millions. many of them were murderers and drug lords and thieves and people from prisons from all over the world, and there were people from mental institutions, insane asylums. they were, they were taking, they're mentally insane and they were dumping them into our country and i'll tell you, tom holman and christy noem are are doing a fantastic job in removing them and now the courts, the supreme court just gave us numerous good rulings where we have to be able to get them out. you had other judges trying to take over the system. and think of it, they take over. they want these people coming back trendraqua from venezuela, the venezuela jails that cut off

the fingers of a man in colorado. they cut off his fingers because he called the police looking for help. they said, did you call the police? he said, yes, i did. put your hand down and they cut off the fingers. this is what they want to bring these people back. no, and i want to thank the president of el salvador for the job he's done because that is. that's the way it has to be done. yeah. >> chuck schumer and nancy pelosi, they've been talking about tariffs for decades. how come when these democrat elites want tariffs, everything's hunky dory, but when president trump wants tariffs, all hell breaks loose. do you see this double standard? >> i love this guy, whoever the hell that is. that's really nice. i appreciate that question. no, chuck schumer and nancy pelosi, everybody knew you had to do it, but they never had the guts to do it. it does take guts. it even takes guts for our country to go through it. that's why i say be cool. they were saying about, just be cool, it's going to work out. it's going to work out and it's working out.

i can tell you working out maybe faster than i thought, but i said it's, it's going to take a little conditioning. it's a transition to it's really, i think it's a transition to greatness. it's going to be greatness. our country is going to be, there'll be nothing like it and people investing in our country, they're going to do better than they've ever done before. we have more car manufacturers, roger, coming into our country now speaking of cars. we've never seen anything like it, and they're coming in because of the election, but they're coming in because of the tariffs because they don't want to pay 25 or 50 or whatever it may be. they don't want to pay that. they can't pay that. we had 3 cancellations in mexico building a plant. they're all coming into the united states. canada, they're coming in from china. they're coming. they're coming in from everywhere, and that's just cars. we have chipmakers coming. we have the biggest chip maker

in the world from taiwan coming in spending $3 billion to build plants and mostly a big plant. this is a hell of a plant. when you spend the kind of money . they're going to go to hundred billion dollars to $300 billion. not million dollars, you know, you'd say a million dollars would be the right number. think of that $300 billion. if you look at apple, apple is going to spend $500 billion building a plan. they wouldn't be doing that if i didn't do this. they'd just keep building them in china. and that's unsustainable. it's not a pleasant thing to do, but i appreciate the question. and you know, interestingly, chuck schumer and nancy pelosi, crazy nancy, they, they've wanted to do this for years, but they never had a president that had the guts to do it because it does take guts, believe me. the bond markets that persuaded -- >> was it the bond markets that persuaded you to reverse the -- >> i was watching the bond market. the bond market is very tricky. i was watching it, but if you look at it now, it's, it's beautiful. the bond market right now is

beautiful, but yeah, i saw last night where people were getting a little queasy. i think everything -- well the big move wasn't what i did today. the big move was what i did on liberation day. we had liberation day in america. we're liberated from all of the horrible deals that were made, all of the horrible trade deals that were made, and i was helped by people just like this senator, congressman, and friends, right? and we had great help in the senate. republican senators have been amazing. they stood tall. and likewise in the house and john thune has done an amazing job, barrasso has done an amazing job. i mean, i can't think of a senator really. we had tremendous support. we got a bill passed the other day with almost unanimous support in the senate, and i think we're going to get that in the house too, and i have to tell you that mike johnson is a great speaker. he's done a fantastic job.

we had a majority of one. now we have a majority of 7. and you don't realize how big 7 is until you have a majority of one. seven sounds like so much. we're doing well. but mike johnson and john thune have done a really great job. >> has anyone influenced your decision? did you speak with anyone like jamie dimon? >> i watched jamie dimon on maria bartiromo's show this morning and he was very good. he said that i actually made the statement to the effect that something had to be done with the tariffs and trade. he said that at some point, but he said something has to be done with tariffs and trade. he understood it. he's very smart, very genius financially. he's done a fantastic job at the bank. and he knows that everybody knows that. anybody that's even a little bit smart knows it. it wasn't sustainable what was happening. somebody had to pull the trigger. i was willing to pull the trigger.

this should have been done long ago. just like biden should have stopped the border long ago, i mean, allowed 21 million people plus into our country, many of whom should never have been allowed out of prisons and jails. they came out of prisons and jails from all over the world, and now we're getting them out, bringing them back to their countries, but it should have never been done. >> would you consider exempting some u.s. companies, maybe some larger companies who have been hit hard in the markets in the last few days -- >> as time goes by, we're going to take a look at it. there are some that have been hard. there are some that by the nature of the company get hit a little bit harder, and we'll take a look at that. >> how will you determine that? >> instinctively, more than anything else, i mean, you almost can't take a pencil to paper. it's really more of an instinct, then anything else. >> you said that these tariffs would go into effect on monday. you said no pause today there is a pause. how can people believe your word?

>> it's not a question of that. you have to have flexibility. i could say here's a wall and i'm going to go through that wall. i'm going to go through it no matter what, and keep going and you can't go through the wall. sometimes you have to be able to go under the wall around the wall, or over the wall. these guys know that better than anybody, right? you've got to go around them sometimes. you're not going to go through them. so i consider, you know, i think in financial markets because they change. look how much it changed today. we went from you know, pretty moderate today, but over the last few days it looked pretty glum, to, i guess they say it was the biggest day in financial history. that's a pretty big change. i think the word would be flexible. you have to be flexible. like he's asking the question about some companies. some companies, through no fault of them, they happen to be in an industry that is more affected by these things than others. you have to be able to show a little flexibility. and i'm able to do that. i'm going to say hello to these champions because they are great

champions. [background chatter]